Getting the Most Out of Facebook Social Ads
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Learn how to boost your small business with Facebook Ads. Discover formats, objectives, best practices, and tips to maximize your ad performance and ROI.
Let’s face it. Building a following on Facebook is more challenging than ever, not to mention getting your posts seen by others, including your followers. Social networks like Facebook control the platforms and the visibility of your posts in order to "encourage" you to advertise with them. Facebook offers a self-serve Ads Manager tool where you can create and track your image-based or video ads. As always, start with your business goals: what are you promoting or trying to get others to do? Facebook Ad Objectives Once you are clear on your goals, you can choose your campaign objective. Here are some objectives offered in Facebook Ads Manager:
Be aware that Facebook uses artificial intelligence to help optimize your ads and target the right audience. Facebook Ad Formats You can choose from a variety of ad types. Ads contain text and a call to action but can come in a variety of formats.
Additional ad types include:
Facebook also offers Dynamic ads that are automatically shown to users based on their interests and behaviors. Facebook Ads Best Practices Choosing the right ad objective and ad format puts you on the right track toward getting the most out of Facebook ads. However, there are other things you can do to optimize your ads:
Not every ad will work for you. Try the A/B testing feature in the Ad Manager to test out different headlines, copy, and imagery to identify which ads perform better. Additional Facebook Advertising Features Facebook’s Ad Manager provides more than the ad builders and ad campaign management. You can track the activity on each ad including impressions (how many people are shown your ad), clicks, and conversions. For more detailed tracking, install the Meta pixel (formerly called a Facebook pixel) - a small line of JavaScript code that you place into the header section of your websites HTML code. The pixel tracks user actions that happen through your Facebook ads, such as form submissions if you’re using a lead generation ad or sales-oriented actions such as adding an item to a shopping cart on your ecommerce site or making a purchase. When it comes to the cost of your ads, you can employ a bidding strategy such as automatic, spend-based, goal-based or manual.
Each method of bidding comes with pros and cons and choosing one will often depend on your budget. As you can see, there are many aspects to advertising on Facebook and a variety of ways to configure your ad campaigns. Facebook offers guides for businesses with their own set of tips, best practices, and explanations to help you get the most out of their advertising platform. Read other social media blogs by Aliza Sherman |